What is Professional EMS?

[akroeze]

Throw in Volunteer FD

[zippyRN]

one of the problems in the US is over supply already with each small community having it's own service

I live in a community of 14 thousand people

In this town there is one police station which is home to the neighbourhood policing team, it;s also a traffic police base due to the station being about a mile down a straight road to a major junction onto the M62... we have a community beat manager ( sworn ) and 2 PCSOs based at the NPT plus extra resourcing from the response sections based around the district - the district has allocated 580 or so sworn full time officers and a number of special constables (sworn , volunteer,officers ) and a number of PCSOs ( 316k pop, 34000 hectare area)

we do not have an Ambulance Station - we do have a community first responder scheme (volunteer) and there are several strategic standby points for Ambulances / response vehicles within the town, there is an ambulance station in the next town (4 or 5 miles) one way and in the city to the other direction (about 9 miles), there are also active SJA units in the city and another adjacent town

we have a fire station - it is retained duty system and it has one rescue/pump/ladder of the type typical in Uk fire services

the city has 2 RPLs and a aerial appliance on wholetiem staffing and the town has 1RPL on whole time staffing

[Just Plain Ruff]

lots of acronyms in there Zippy but I get your jist.

It's like in the us

We have emt schools spitting out emt's every week it seems. We have medic schools that are less prolific but they are similar.

Fire fighters are just as prevalently spit out.

We have an ambucab service for every community of about 1000 people or more.

The area I worked at had two ALS services for our county. Granted we ran the majority of calls but this 2nd service ran 1/4 of the calls we ran.

Add in the volunteer services and you see a huge jump.

But then again, every thread here ends up with a volly versus paid slant or so it seems.

I for one prefer the explanation "Global Warming" is the cause of this dilemma

[Asysin2leads]

ok take DMAT out of the picture

What do we do with the search and rescue teams that are strictly volunteer. Do we get rid of them?

SAR is not EMS. If people want to do training and respond on the off chance a plane crashes or a mountaineer goes missing, go for it. You want to put a splint on him while you're up there? Knock yourself out. If people want to train to augment professional medical services in the event of a disaster, great, that's different then day to day EMS.

EMS, is the provision of timely, professional medical services to a community, which may include augmenting or being part of a Search and Rescue team, but generally is doing some 12 leads, picking up some old folks, and doing cardiac arrests here and there. SAR is not EMS. DMAT is not EMS. Hell, lifeguarding ain't even EMS. They may have aspects which overlap with EMS, but EMS has aspects that overlap with Police and Fire, but were not the same thing.

[mrmeaner]

Maybe this is a reason topics seem to veer back to paid vs. volly.

http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/genera...dle-cover_x.htm

I can't think of profession, job, career, whatever you want to call it, that pays an average of $50K per year (I know this is variable by region) that has a steady stream of recent graduates making their way to HR to volunteer their time. Yes, there is a want for the advancement of EMS in terms of education and professionalism for the sake of providing a better service. But there is also the want to be able to pay the bills.

I understand that there are a lot of volunteers who swear up and down that they only do this to "help their neighbor in need". This may be true, but there needs to be a limit to a volunteers intervention in EMS. If you want to drive to the scene without rivaling Doc's Delorean in speed and without being mistaken for a mobile discotechque, help perform patient care as described in your SOP's and not loosely based on ER, House, or Paramedics, not transport the patient in a third hand ambulance, and return home in your personal vehicle from the scene and not to the nearest tavern to describe the smell of a dead guy or how "messed up those kids were" in the MVA, fine. Otherwise, no thank you. Thanks for calling.

I volunteered for four years as a firefighter and first responder. When I think back to how I acted and felt during emergencies, it embarrasses me and pisses me off. Why didn't anyone smack me in the back of the head and explain how to behave in a professional manner. Why? Because I was as bad as everyone else. I don't blame them for my behavior, I'm just disappointed that there wasn't a different example to follow.

A check will not guarantee professionalism, but it is easier to be a professional when it's your profession, not a hobby.

[Lone Star]

I'd say -20 for the cut and paste. +9 for the admitting it. Lot of credit for admitting, but the violation was severe. Another reason why education is important...the more classes you take (especially English) the more you are exposed to issues of plagiarism.

The difference between plagiarism and quoting sources for informational purposes is vast. When you present the information as your own thoughts, hypothesis, or educated opinion without quoting your source material and giving the credit to those that originally presented said thoughts or information, that is plagiarism.

Since the original poster did eventually quote his sources (yes, he should have posted these sources in the original post), he is saved from the charge of being a plagiarist.

[Michael]

I got your professionalism, right here:

[Scaramedic]

:shock:

[JPINFV]

Since we're posting videos about our professionalism, who can forget this gem brought to us from the state of Pennsylvania?

[Asysin2leads]

Blatant rip off of Bringing Out the Dead. I'm gonna slap Joe Connelly next time I see him, lol. (Kidding, he's actually a nice guy.)